Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Busted Forced-Air Heater

The furnace people came to the house today to check on our click-click-clicking furnace. And now I'm paranoid.

The dudes said that there is a large, visible crack in the heat exchanger (I love throwing these words around like I know what they mean) and that the blower motor was on the verge of failure (which is what I thought it was, since the stupid blower kept click-click-clicking). He said that these things usually cause each other or happen together and, more importantly, that it needs to be taken care of ASAP. He made me nervous by saying that the cracked heat exchanger could start causing the furnace to blow out carbon monoxide and made sure we had a CO detector in the apartment (which we do, in fact, it's all part of the smoke detector, the one that broke FOUR MONTHS AGO that we'd been hounding the landlords about since then and finally got last week).

Now, I'm relieved that we have a nice new CO detector in the house in case this /does/ start happening, but what about all of that time that we're not home? What about the cats? I admit that I'm a little, well, prone to the anxiety, but I don't want to come home to a house full of passed out cats and a beeping CO detector, either.

I left voicemails for the landlords on their home phone and one's cell phone. I'm sure he won't be pleased because it will probably be an expensive fix (unless it's still under warranty), but I /really/ want him to take care of this right away. Yuck. Heater problems give me stomach pains.

I'm glad I was able to give more detailed information about the problem. Jen was great and told them that the heater does a lot of clicking and start-stopping when we turn it on, but when I heard them talking about it I realized they were confused and thought that the whole furnace was turning on and off, not just the blower. So I like to pretend I helped solve the mystery! ;)

This post has no point.

Ooh, one more degree and we're above freezing. Come on, temperature, YOU CAN DO IT!

So far a pretty productive day off. it's only 1pm and I've already enjoyed a deliciously sinful breakfast thanks to My Jennifer (who made chocolate chip pancakes for us before she went to work), dealt with the heater dudes, called the landlords, emptied the dishwasher, stripped the bed, washed the sheets, remade the bed, finished the laundry, and loved on some cats. Excellent.

I need to make a Target run at some point for un-fun things like cat litter. I was going to buy a new filter for the furnace in case that was causing some of our problems, but the heater dudes said it was not, and besides, we'll hopefully be getting a brandy-new unit or something soon. But maybe I'll get one anyway, because it's been a while. It's tough being me.

Later today (probably tonight) I have /promised/ myself that I'll do some studying for the LICSW exam, since I pretty much just procrastinate the heck out of it and will inevitably fail it or whatever. I always say I don't have enough time to go over stuff and today, well, I have plenty of time. So there.

But first (first!) I shall make a Goodwill run, because I haven't been to a single Goodwill since I moved to this godforesaken place and I've gotten too small for most of my crappy work pants. I suppose I could also check Old Navy when I run to Target, but I hate buying good, brand-new pants when I'm just going to go and sit on random people's dirty, sticky floors for work - and get spit up on, sneezed on, yogurted on, painted on, etc. So Goodwill it is.

I still haven't stepped inside the gym since right before my dad died, but I've kept off all the weight I lost when I /was/ going, thanks to Metformin. And the doubled dose appears to be dropping a couple more pounds. Weird.

This post had no point. Maybe it's carbon monoxide! Aieeeeeee!

Space cadet

Ugh. I just realized that I didn't get one of my bags when I went to the store, and there was about $8 worth of stuff in the bag. I called the store back and I guess they checked with the cashier at the lane I was in, but they didn't find my bag. They told me I could come back anytime and they would look at the cameras and see if the person behind me took my bag. That seems like a serious amount of trouble. I mean, old camera logs? Are you serious?

I'm trying to decide if it's worth going all the way back to the freaking store (it's only about 5-6 miles away, but in Boston, 5-6 miles is at least a 30 minute drive) tonight or if I should just chalk the $8 up to being an idiot. And re-buying the stuff tomorrow.

Bluh.

Could I get a little enthusiasm, maybe?

I don't talk to my mother very often and we don't have a terribly close relationship. It's not surprising since my parents got divorced when I was three and I lived with my dad, but I think that my mother always had this notion that we didn't have a relationship /because/ of my dad and that we would somehow magically be close when I moved out of my dad's house when I was 17. Except of course that didn't happen.

We actually did start to get kind of close for a while when A. and I were together, when I was in Boston for grad school, and then when I moved to Maine to be with him. We talked quite a bit and she came up to Maine several times. When I moved to Ohio we saw each other occasionally but distance kind of killed that, and then she got really weird when I got divorced.

I thought at the time that she just had such mixed feelings about my getting divorced... she was going through rocky times with her husband and I'm not sure if my divorce from A. was really difficult for her or what. When Jen and I got together, my mom had a lot of trouble with that for a long time and seemed to have a hard time even saying Jen's name. She would change the subject a lot and stuff. I guess it's one thing to have your kid tell you she's queer and another for your kid to be a /practicing/ queer or something. Whatever. She's nice to Jen now and that's all that really matters to me... but we still don't have a relationship.

I decided to call her tonight since I haven't talked to her in a long time, and the last time I talked to her I was in a really bad mood and not much into talking... so I thought it would be a good idea to just catch up on stuff. I decided to tell her (why, I don't know) that I have been seeing a fertility specialist (I've seen reproductive endocrinologists a couple of times through the years, so she's aware of my fertility-type problems already) specifically because Jen and I want to start trying to have a baby. I thought... oh hell, I don't know what I thought, really, but I thought she might be kind of jazzed about it.

So I tell her, and her entire commentary revolved around the fact that I told her when I was 18 that I didn't want to bear children. And that's it. Not even in a question or whatever, although I tried to pretend it was like that and decided to go into the many reasons we were considering /not/ adopting right now, as well as reasons why I (and not Jen) am considering trying right now. And I talked about the whole fertility process and the costs and how we have to decide how far we want to go with this and how much we can realistically spend and yadda yadda.

And she changed the subject.

Aah well, I tried. At least she said hi to Jen.